impatient then. Why don’t men ever know there’s a time for foreplay and a time to get straight down to business? I’ll never understand it. I didn’t want to get bossy, though, so I decided to get even gamer instead. I wiggled my hips down, down his body, until…
Eureka!
I found what I wanted. What I needed. And, my, it was glorious. Truly glorious—there are, after all, benefits to a guy being six-foot-four. It was everything I’d been dreaming of in that boat shed and more. So, Charlie, I told myself. This is it. Really it. Not that silly flag stuff on Mount Everest, but country-conquering territory.
Slowly, slowly, I snuck my hand into his boxers. I wanted so badly just to grab it, but I didn’t. I like to think I’m a lady! Instead, I prolonged the agony. I ran my hand over his hip and down onto his leg. Over his stomach and…oh, everywhere. Everywhere but. And when I couldn’t wait any longer I went for it. But then something went wrong.
I stopped, confused. It was, um, shrinking. And, frankly, that wasn’t something on my agenda. It wasn’t something that was supposed to happen.
Oh, fuck.
‘Charlie—don’t.’ Jas had frozen. ‘Just get off me,’ he added, scrambling up, pulling my hand out of his boxers.
I moved just as fast off the top of him and onto the other side of the bed.
And inside my head I swore and swore and swore.
The one thing I was grateful for was that it was dark in the bedroom, like the balcony had been before. This was a good thing, because for that awful, quiet moment before anything was said I knew that I just never wanted to see Jas again. I wanted the bed to engulf me. For me to sink right in, where no one would ever find me. To never have to hear what he was about to say.
I waited, all the time just dying inside. Withering away. And those words kept repeating and repeating themselves in my head. Charlie—don’t. Get off me. Charlie—don’t. Get off me.
At first, sitting on the other side of the bed, Jas didn’t say anything. Then he sort of groaned, and that was it. But it was a telling groan. Or at least I thought it was. A ‘how embarrassing, my flatmate’s just jumped me’ kind of groan. Charlie—don’t. Get off me. Charlie—don’t. Get off me.
And then it started. ‘Charlie, I…’
Charlie—don’t. Get off me. Charlie—don’t. Get off me. I couldn’t bear it any longer. ‘Just say it. And quickly.’
He stopped. Ran both his hands through his hair. ‘Don’t know what to say…’
‘How about “you’re repulsive, Charlie”? Oh, too late. You already covered that. No words required.’
He reached over somewhere beside the bed then. I watched his hand.
Oh, no. No!
The light turned on.
As if it wasn’t bad enough just to hear what he was going to say, I had to hear it in the light. Where every expression could be read. Where he’d be able to see each word stab right through my heart. And it was so bright, that light. Worse even than the lights in dressing rooms when you’re trying on swimsuits after a sucking-coffee-through-double-choc-coated-Tim-Tams/triple-helping-of-sticky-date-pudding Winter.
‘How can you say that? That you’re repulsive?’ He looked at me as if I was crazy.
‘You obviously think so.’
He stretched his hand out to touch me on the arm.
‘Don’t.’ I pulled away.
‘You know that’s not what I meant. It’s not you. Not you at all. It’s me.’
I laughed then. Really laughed. ‘That’s original. It’s not you, it’s me. I’ve never heard that one before.’
He swung his legs over the side of the bed so that his back was to me. ‘No, I mean it. It is me.’ There was a lengthy pause. ‘I just can’t.’
‘Yeah. Right. With me, you mean. What you mean is, it’s me. Not you. Me. Me!’ The fact that he couldn’t just admit the truth drove me past crazy.
‘I…’ He ran his hands through his hair again. Hard. I flinched, wondering how much hair he’d just pulled out. ‘Just can’t. Not now. Not with you.’
I sat there, winded by those final three words. Final in every sense. Not with you. So it was me. And there it was, out in the open. Strangely enough, it didn’t make me feel any better. ‘But all those girls…’ I thought to myself, then realised the words had actually come out of my mouth. I shut it tight, but couldn’t shut out my remembering their oh-so-similar morning smiles. Their different faces. Names. Amanda. Rachel. Kirsty. Sophie. Rebecca. Theresa. What was so different about them? I became acutely aware of the bed beneath me. The bed in which, not so long ago, they’d all…
Ugh.
Something inside me started to bubble after this. I sat there for a bit longer as it churned away in my stomach. And then I worked out what it was. It was anger. It was easier to be angry than to feel embarrassed—less painful. Soon enough, it worked its way out. ‘Well, I’m sorry I’m not good enough,’ I spat, hitting the mattress with one hand.
He turned again. ‘Charlie, don’t be stupid.’
‘Stupid? What’s so stupid about it? One minute you’re sleeping with every girl in sight and the next minute you’re throwing me off. What am I supposed to think?’
Jas stood up. ‘Wish I could explain it to you, but I can’t.’
‘What’s there to explain?’ I was acting like an idiot and I knew it, but I felt that if I stopped fighting, even for a moment, I’d just break down and cry—and I couldn’t, wouldn’t, do that. Not here, anyway.
I got up off the bed and snorted inelegantly. ‘I guess I’m just not blonde enough for you.’ Jas had started to say something, but I held my hand out to stop him. ‘Don’t say it. Just don’t talk to me. I don’t want to hear it.’ My voice was getting louder and louder by the minute. I turned and left the room, slamming the door behind me.
Chapter Four
I don’t think I slept at all that night.
It didn’t seem to matter what I tried to think about, that one moment in time kept running itself through my head again and again. The awful moment when I knew it had all gone wrong. The moment when the, um…tower crumbled and fell, for want of a better way of putting it.
What I didn’t understand, though, was that I’d been sure he was interested. At the start, that is. After all, he was the one who’d pulled in—he’d kept kissing me. So why pull away later instead of as soon as he’d got a chance? It just didn’t make any sense. And the more I thought about it, the more convoluted the whole thing got. So convoluted that it gave me a headache, and at five a.m. I had to get up and take some paracetamol. Which must have worked, because the headache was gone when I woke up again at eleven-thirty.
I lay there for fifteen minutes or so, just listening, to see if I could hear
